3 countries in 1 week= great vacation

Last week was Semana Santa (Holy Week) here in Sevilla. I went on a great trip with one of my best friends that I have made over here, Joanna. We decided to go to Bologna, Krakow, Malaga and Granada. We only spent one day in Bologna which we decided was enough time because there isn't a whole lot to see there. We ate a huge Italian feast of bruschetta, a Caprese salad, a Parma ham pizza, and penne arribiata pasta (just for the two of us, in one meal). Then we decided to climb the 500 stairs to the top of one of the leaning towers. Eating that much and then climbing that many stairs was rough. We had to take multiple long breaks to catch our breath along the journey. We made it though and it was worth it- the view was incredible.

After getting down, we walked around the old town a bit and then headed back toward our hotel. The room that we got in our hotel was literally made for the Munchkins of Oz. We were on the top floor and the roof was slanted. I barely fit into the short side of the room and I bumped my head approx. 20 times in our few hours there. Although that was kind of annoying, it was also fun. Our shower was amazing. There were disco lights inside it. We aren't really sure what the function of the lights was, but showering in a pink or blue light definitely made it more exciting!

  The next morning we had to wake up at 4:30 am to catch our flight to Poland. The day started out rough when we realized that we had to walk to a separate terminal for RyanAir to stamp our tickets and look at our visas then walk back. After that there weren't any issues getting to Poland, we even had a person with my name on a sign waiting for us at the airport from our hostel. I felt pretty important. That day we walked around and saw a lot of different districts in Krakow. We saw the old town square, the Jewish quarter and Podgorze (an old Jewish ghetto). We also ate some delicious Polish food including soups and Kielbasa sausage. That night we got Thai massages which was an interesting and relaxing experience. We made friends with the receptionist, Caroline, at our hostel that night because the only other people staying in the hostel were 54 Romanian high school students and their parent chaperons.

The next day we went on a tour of Wieliczka- a salt mine that goes over 900 meters underground. The funniest part of the day was that we were the last people to get onto our tour bus. So, we had to sit in the front seat with the driver and no seat belts. We were pretty frightened the whole way home. We got to tour the first three levels (about 130 meters deep). It was absolutely amazing! There were tons of statues made by the miners that were completely made of salt. There were also a few lakes inside the mine. In these lakes there is a higher salt concentration than the Dead Sea, so anybody who tried to swim in them would just float on the top. We also got to tour the cathedral that is inside the mine. The altar, cross, artwork, pews and chandeliers were all carved from salt. Once we got back to Krakow that day, we were starving and we decided to go to a restaurant that served pierogies. We thought that ordering the mixed platter for 2 would be a good choice so that we could try a few different kinds. Our pierogies came out and there were 40 of them on a boat. Clearly we could not eat them all, even though they were delicious. My favorite was the mashed potato and cheese kind. That night we shared the leftovers with our hostel friends and went out with them.

  The next day we went to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Although it was very depressing, it was also very fascinating. I learned a lot since our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable. He told me a lot of facts that I did not previously know about the camp. We had the opportunity to tour Auschwitz I which they have turned into a museum of sorts. We saw objects that the people brought with them to the camp and learned more about where the prisoners came from. Then after touring all of the parts of Auschwitz I, we went to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. When I thought of concentration camp and Auschwitz, I pictured Auschwitz II-Birkenau in my head. It was in the middle of nowhere, barren, horrible facilities and the train pulled directly into the gates with no opportunity for the prisoners to escape. After returning to Krakow, we went into St. Mary's Church which is one of the most impressive cathedrals I have ever seen. It was so colorful and if you ever get the chance, you should see it!

The next day was spent travelling to Malaga. We were supposed to arrive in Malaga at 1 pm, but we didn't arrive until 5 pm. It was due to the striking of the air traffic controllers in France. We were forced to stay on the plane for over two hours because the pilot thought there might be a chance to leave. After 2 hours, they let us off the plane to buy food and use the restrooms. Then we finally took off and spent 3.5 hours in the air. When we got to our hostel, we were ready to just sit and relax which we got to do. It was nice to be near the beach and see the water even though it was too cold to sit on the beach.

The next day we had time to tour Malaga and get some fried fish (a specialty there). We climbed to the top of the Alcazaba which are ruins. From the top you could see the entire city and it was a great view. After eating the fish, we walked along the beach to grab our suitcases to head to Granada. We took the bus to Granada and arrived just in time to join up with the tapas tour that our hostel hosted. After eating some great tapas, we went out to some bars on the street that I used to live on when I studied in Granada. It was amazing to be back and brought back so many memories. The only bad part of the day is when we returned to our hostel and realized there was no ladder for Joanna to get up onto her top bunk. The other 5 people in our room were already asleep and we definitely woke them up getting Joanna into her bed. It was pretty hilarious if anybody would have been watching, they would have been laughing along with us.

The next couple of days we visited my favorite coffee shops, ice cream stores, tapas bars and sights in Granada. We had the opportunity to climb to the top of the Albaycin to see the Mirador de San Nicolas. From this viewpoint, you can see the entire city. After all of the travelling, I am really glad to be back in my apartment and back in Sevilla at work again.

Bilingualism

There are professors here in Spain who do not understand the importance of bilingual education and bilingualism. I cannot see how they can be so close-minded and unwilling to make changes. Looking at data (granted this is from the US, but I am sure that it would apply worldwide) by fourth grade if students are in a bilingual program they are outscoring their non-bilingual peers by many points on state mandated testing. We had one professor tell a bilingual professor that what she is teaching is a "waste of time" and "not worth it" for the students. I was completely outraged to hear this for many reasons:

First- I would not have taken a year out of my life to come and expose your school to English if you didn't want me there. 

Second- First grade bilingual science is HARD! This is the students first exposure to learning an entire class in a foreign language, so yes they probably are going to act up and be misbehaved. They don't understand what is going on, but once they do, they soak it up like sponges and retain it! 

Third- Looking back to a few weeks ago when the director came to shadow my class, I can finally see that there are haters out there in the world of bilingual education. The bilingual program in Andalucia is extremely new, it has only been around for 2 years. So yes, there are still some kinks to work out, but the students that are getting exposure to English at such a young age will know so much more when they leave the school than the current sixth grade students do. 

I am very frustrated that people cannot see that exposure to another language at a young age is an amazing opportunity. As the world continues to get smaller with new technology every day, students will need to be able to communicate with people all around the world. Also, learning a new language also means learning a new culture. Students who are exposed to cultures/backgrounds of people who are different from them are much more likely to be globally minded, creative, independent thinkers for our future. It also helps to break stereotypes that are created. Stereotypes are created because people are not open to things that are different from them, so students who are exposed to different cultures are much less likely to hold stereotypes. 

Anyway, I don't want to continue ranting. I just finished applying for over 23 bilingual districts in the United States for next year. So, I know that I will be empowering young minds and exposing them to cultural opportunities that they may have never had in a typical school environment. I cannot wait to start hearing back from some districts :)

A Normal Week

This week was the first in awhile where I had to work 4 days and go to all of my classes. It was actually nice to return to my routine because I had been feeling stressed out after travelling a lot and not sleeping/eating normally. So, it was great to return to normal.

In school this week, we celebrated International Woman's Day. The way my school chose to celebrate was by having each professor create a stand about a different woman singer. It kind of reminded me of the science fair because all around the school, there were little tables with instruments, pictures and music playing. There was also information about each of the singers, so I learned a lot about random Spanish women that I didn't know before. In my classes, the teachers were teaching songs by the artist they had chosen. Bea chose Adele, so in my three classes with her, we were working with the song Someone Like You.  In Milagros's class, we worked on the song Vindaloo by Ana Laan. Ana Laan is a Spaniard who was born to a Swedish mother and Spanish father. So, she speaks Swedish, Spanish and English. All of her songs are a mixture of the three languages, so it was really fun to listen to the songs. The students loved listening and raising their hands when she switched from Spanish to English- a great listening practice.

In art this week, we were working on landscapes. Normally I only teach art to the bilingual group, but for some reason, the classes didn't switch. Teresa (the teacher I work with for 2nd grade bilingual) wasn't there that day, so I didn't have any support in Spanish. I was kind of nervous that the students wouldn't understand, but everything turned out great. The students who are in Teresa's class and also in the bilingual class were a great help and explained things to their non-bilingual peers if they got confused. Their projects turned out great and the class was relatively calm and quiet the whole time. It was very nice to be in a class where everyone was listening and following directions.

Outside of school, I did a few exciting things this week. On Tuesday, I was in a cooking class with Joanna. We learned how to make Pisto Manchego which is a vegetable medley in a tomato sauce. We also learned how to make Spinach and Garbanzos in a creamy veggie sauce. The food was very good, but the class wasn't over until almost 11:30. If we sign up again, we would definitely choose to go on the weekend or a Thursday night. On Friday, I spent my entire day sitting outside by the river in the sun with a picnic and good friends. Saturday, I went to the First International Beer Festival that is being held here in Sevilla. Saturday night I went to my friend Hannah's house for crepes and wine- which was great besides having to evacuate the building for a fire on the fifth floor in the middle of our dinner. Today, I volunteered at a 10k race. I handed out food and drinks at the end of the race to the runners. I really liked it, but next time I would prefer to get up later than 6:45 am to go volunteer.

Shake, Shake, Shake Your Tail

Last weekend was a long weekend or "puente" as they call it here in Spain. I decided to take a solo trip to Brussels and Amsterdam. I was busy the whole time and didn't really get lonely until the last day/night there. I think my favorite part of my trip was the day trip I took to Amsterdam. I got to visit the Anne Frank House, see Dam square/monument, wander the Jordaan neighborhood, and shop a bit. The weather was perfect and Amsterdam was such a cute city. I hope that in the future I can make another trip there for a longer period of time.
In Brussels, I got to do all of the things I wanted to do, which is the nice part about travelling alone. A lot of what I did was eat. I had most of the typical Belgian food including waffles, chocolate, mussels, fries, and kebabs. Kebabs are pretty much the same thing as a gyro. My favorite attraction was the chocolate museum. I got to learn a little bit about the history of chocolate, then see a demonstration on how pralines are made. My favorite part was the free samples :)

I also got to see all of the major attractions. I really liked the Magritte Museum, but I wish there would have been more of his artwork and less letters that were written to him in French or Dutch that I couldn't read. I saw the cathedral, Grand Palace, Palace of Justice and of course the Atomium. I think the Atomium is the coolest attraction that I have ever visited. It was built for the 1958 World Expo in Brussels. It is an iron atom, blown up 165 billion times. People can walk around inside of it and have a beautiful panoramic view from the top. It was very futuristic and I really enjoyed visiting.

Since we had the break last weekend, school was only 2 days this week for me. Wednesday I went in and taught sixth grade the different endings for regular verbs in the simple past tense. They had to fill out a chart deciding if the word ended in /d/ /Id/ or /t/. It really helped some of them because they have the tendency to say all of the words with an /Id/ ending sound. Now they can look back and the chart to help them better their pronunciation. 

Thursday was very exciting. I didn't actually have to go to school because we were going on a field trip to see a play in English with the 1st and 2nd graders. The play was in Los Remedios (my neighborhood), so I got to sleep in and just meet them at the place where it was. The play was about a dog, cat, donkey and rooster who form a band because their owner doesn't want them anymore. The biggest issue we had was that the play was in English, but Spaniards were acting and they had really bad accents. It was very hard to understand the play and many of the students left confused. Also, they seated us on the top balcony level, which normally would have been fine, but we booked the play last May. We have a student who is in a wheelchair and they would not let him sit downstairs, so one of the teachers had to carry him up the stairs so he could sit with us. I can even begin to imagine how he felt. It was really crappy of the company to book the only school with a student with a physical disability on the top floor. Also, none of the students could really see from the top floor because they were too little to see over the seats in front of them. I was nervous that one of them was going to fall over the balcony because of how they were jumping up out of their seats. The kids really liked the songs in the play though and the one "Shake Your Tail" has been stuck in my head all weekend...

Here Come's the Sun

The past two weeks at school have been so much better! The students are finally paying more attention and really wanting to learn English. It might be because we have been doing a lot of fun things like singing and crafts, but today when I was teaching vocabulary, the students seemed to be paying attention.

For Valentine's Day at school, I made the students learn the poem "Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet and so are you!" They had to color the words red and blue correctly and then the could write a Valentine to whoever they wanted. The only rule was that they needed to write "I love you" in English. Then they could write whatever they wanted to on the rest of their heart. Many of the students wrote their Valentine's to me, which was super cute and heartwarming.

With my older students, we did a vocabulary check for Valentine's Day words. We went over about 15 words and what they mean. Then they had to read a set of directions and draw the what the directions said. They are going to turn them in tomorrow and we are going to pick a winner. If we didn't have any incentive for the students to draw well, they would just scratch some stuff on their papers and turn them in. So, we decided to give a prize. I hope they come out well :)

Today was my first opportunity to teach a class completely by myself. Bea was home sick with a cold and for some reason, there was no substitute sent to my class. I was a little worried about it, but it was the best class that I have had so far. I set some ground rules at the beginning of class such as raising your hand to talk, working quietly so that everyone can concentrate and that nobody could go to the bathroom. These three things are constant problems in all of my classes and since I am not the full time teacher, I feel weird overstepping the authority of the full time teacher. Since that wasn't an issue today, I tried it out. The students got all of their work done today and we even had a little bit of time left over to do some Simon Says (the kids favorite game!)

Super blog for the Super Bowl!

I realize that it has been quite awhile since my last blog, I have been extremely busy!

Two weekends ago, I went to Arcos de la Frontera which was beautiful. The weather was perfect for walking through the hilly city. Our hosts took us up the top of the city which is the Old Town. We got to look off of many picturesque cliffs. The views were breathtaking. We also went inside an art shop. Besides our tour, we did a lot of eating because food and drinks were very cheap in Arcos.

Last week at school was a short week. I took Thursday off because I was going to meet my dad in Madrid to go to Germany. Last Monday was Dia de La Paz (Day of Peace) here in Spain. To celebrate, I taught all of my students the song Imagine by John Lennon. Milagros even taught the 3rd-5th graders the song, so the entire school could sing the song if we wanted them to. With my first grade students, I also did an art activity. They cut out doves and made a peace ring that said "paz" on one side and "peace" on the other. With the 2nd and 6th grade students, we talked about how to make the world a more peaceful place. The students came up with some amazing ideas and even more amazingly said some of them in English. My only issue at school this week was in 6th grade. The students were more interested in talking about an issue that happened on the playground that learning English. Apparently someone threw ham (off of his sandwich) at another student. I was having a hard time keeping a straight face because I really wanted to laugh at this being such a huge issue, but I couldn't laugh. We did not finish the activity that I had planned because they were more worried about yelling at each other in Spanish. Milagros told them that I am not going to come anymore until they can get their act together. So, this week, I am not supposed to go to the 6th grade classes. I think that will bore me a bit...but if it will make the students eager to have me back in class, then I will sit around for a couple of hours on Wednesday.

My trip to Germany with my dad was AWESOME! Although the weather was extremely cold, the trip was a total success. We got to visit Wiesloch, Germany where a lot of our Schweinfurth cousins live. We had the opportunity to meet them and get lunch with them. We also got to learn about Georg Schweinfurth, an ancestor who was a famous explorer in Africa. He was a very interesting man that did a lot of different things such as draw a map of the Nile river, explore tombs, find new varieties of plants, learn about pygmies, invented the Toy of the Year, has his own Swiss chocolate and was on the cover of a woman's magazine. The next day we had the opportunity to head out to Schweinfurt, Germany. This is where my ancestors were originally from. The "h" was added onto our last name when they moved to Wiesloch and Nurenburg.  They were originally Episcopalian, but then they turned Catholic where they added the h. It was great learning about so much history and seeing where my family comes from. Also, getting to see my dad was great! I can't wait to see him again when he comes over in May with my mom.

Last night was the Super Bowl. I have been jealous all week looking at people's photos of the Super Bowl village in Indianapolis! It looks like it was a lot of fun! I am pretty jealous that I did not get to try out the zip line or meet Jimmy Fallon. Anyway, Joanna is a Giant's fan and she really wanted to watch the game. So, we got tickets to an event that was put on by We Love Spain (an event planning organization mainly for study abroad students). We had to pay 10 euro to get into the event and we got free popcorn, beer and hot dogs during the game. It was a very American night, which was a lot of fun. Since the Super Bowl did not start until 12:35 am, I did not end up getting home until very early this morning. It was worth the fun night, but I do wish it had ended earlier!! 

Technology- Best friend and worst enemy all in one

This week was better than last week in terms of student behavior, but I still had a tough week. I taught the worst lesson I have ever taught in my entire time teaching so far. I also had a lot of other mishaps throughout the week.

In 2nd grade science/social studies, my students got their Animals exams back. I am proud to say that only 1 student failed and over half got a 8 or above (their grading system is out of 10). I feel that this was the first unit where they really understood not only the topic, but the English vocabulary as well. We continued working on our plants unit, which is going by very quickly since they already learned all of the vocabulary last year in 1st grade. Tuesday was a bit of a rough day because my co-teacher left me (and her cell phone) alone with the class. Normally, it isn't a problem for me to be by myself with the children, but the issue was, her cell phone kept going off. Her ringtone is "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5 and don't get me wrong, I like that song, but having 28 children dancing and off topic every time the phone rang was a bit distracting. Today, the students listened to the story The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle, then made tissue paper flower collages. Reading the book to the class was a bit difficult since the book was in Spanish and I had to translate and read at the same time.

 

 

In 1st grade, I was proposed to this week. At the end of class on Monday, one of my students Francisco came up and gave me a huge hug. I call him my extra limb every class because he always comes up and attaches himself onto my middle. As he was hugging me, he told me that I am "guapa" (pretty) and that he loves me with about 10 different words. Then he went on to say that he couldn't imagine living one day without me in his life. It was pretty precious, but his girlfriend (yes, he is 7 and has a girlfriend), got very upset and started crying. Needless to say, I turned him down and told him to go back with Paula.

6th grade was really tough this week. I walked in and had a lesson prepared, but nothing seemed to go right. I had taken Adele's "Someone Like You" and removed some words from the lyrics. I took out words that we have been working on as vocabulary, mainly contractions and past tense verbs. In my first class, the lesson worked, everything was great. We used the Promethean Board to write in the missing lyrics as a class and then I had the whole class sing the song. Then, I went into my other 6th grade class. I plugged my flash drive into the smart board, pressed play and the sound was absolutely awful. So, I decided, no big deal, I will just plug it into the CD player. The speakers on the CD player were broken. Then I plugged it into the computer and those speakers were broken TOO! I decided to go ask for a CD down in the secretary's office, but then when I tried to burn the CD, it wouldn't work. I decided to try and find the video on YouTube, which also had awful sound. I finally gave up because almost 45 of our 55 minutes together had passed. I decided that I would just sing the song. Ok, I can sing since I was in choir for so long, but Adele? You've got to be kidding me, I made a huge fool of myself in front of the class The students weren't even filling in the words, they were laughing at me. Milagros was talking to the students about respecting each other and themselves because they have been having a lot of issues with that is the 6th grade recently, so it wasn't a complete loss of a day, but I still felt embarrassed and bad.

This weekend, I am going to visit a small village called Arcos de la Fronterra. I think it will be nice to get away for a night and just relax. I am really looking forward to next week when my dad gets here and we go to Schweinfurt, Germany.